You may have read about prior Jewish Link SuperFans and thought, “Wow now that’s an avid reader of the newspaper,” or, “It’s incredible the different ways he/she makes use of the publication,” or “I can’t believe how often that guy writes letters to the paper.” But it’s safe to say that few rival Charyn Atlas’ palpable passion for The Jewish Link and some of the people who help make each week’s issue happen.
Now, mind you, Charyn is already a very active and involved woman. She and husband Harvey have lived in Edison, New Jersey, for decades, raised three lovely children—Jessica, Michael and Bezalel—and now enjoy visits with their eight grandchildren. Charyn is a realtor with Legendary Realty LLC, selling real estate in the Highland Park/Edison and Long Branch/Deal communities. Having spent many years in both places, she has extensive knowledge of the neighborhoods. She takes great pleasure in matching the right buyer with the right property.
Charyn is very active in the local Jewish community and professionally. She served previously as a member of the boards of the Jewish Federation of Raritan Valley, the Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva and Congregation Our Torah. She also served on the board of trustees of the Middlesex County Bar Association, in her “former life” as an attorney.
Yet Charyn has carved a special place in her life for The Jewish Link and interacts with each issue as a valued friend.
Charyn reads the paper regularly and thoroughly, enjoying the parsha commentaries, current news stories, restaurant reviews, essays by therapists and physicians and other coverage as well. She informed this reporter, conspiratorially, that she often gets two copies of the paper so she and Harvey can each read it without delaying the other from getting to it.
She credits The Jewish Link with making COVID-19 “so much more tolerable.” She explained that prior to the pandemic, she and her husband regularly hosted Friday night guests, but then COVID came and made that practice ill-advised. As a replacement, she and Harvey would take their copies of the paper to the Shabbos table (“My mother would be mortified! She taught me never to read at the table with anyone else there.”) and would alternate between reading and sharing with each other their thoughts about the different ideas, news developments and Torah insights they read. She says, “The newspaper has elevated our conversations and given us countless interesting topics to talk about.”
She discusses aspects of the paper with friends and identified one neighbor whom she walks with, a big fan of Rabbi Moshe Taragin and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”tl, who will start conversations with “Did you see what he said this week?!”
Asked if she had particular favorite sections, Charyn mentioned that she turns first to the Home/Living section, from the vantage point of her work as a realtor. She enjoys reading about market insights, design trends, financing and sales strategies. She shared that she enjoys the letters to the editor and, in particular, Max Wisotsky’s letters and finds his activism remarkable. She said, “He sets a great example of someone who is engaged in different issues and is so dynamic.”
She is also a huge fan of Nina Glick’s columns, which she feels speak to her “like an old friend, writing without pretense, always warm and personal, while sharing thoughtful concerns or inspiring ideas.” Her affinity for Nina is probably accentuated by the fact that Charyn met her at the Juice Theory restaurant in Long Branch last summer and the two got along quite well. Charyn was surprised and deeply complimented when Nina mentioned her in her column the following week, citing Charyn as a great example of the impact of being grateful to others and offering uplifting compliments.
Nina Glick isn’t the only Jewish Link celebrity that Charyn takes pride in meeting. She recalled how, during the early years of the newspaper, she and Harvey participated in a Pesach program at Sunny Isles, Florida. She learned that the man with the lovely family at the adjoining table was Moshe Kinderlehrer and walked over to ask, “Are you the Moshe Kinderlehrer, of The Jewish Link?” He said he in fact was, and subsequently she and Harvey got to know the Kinderlehrer family; Charyn recounts this as one of the highlights of the vacation.
Asked to sum up her feelings about the newspaper, Charyn said that in all the news coverage—both good and bad—“people are honest, they write with sincerity, and I find a lot of what I read very moving. I love the paper, I absolutely love it.”
Do you know someone who qualifies as a Jewish Link SuperFan? If so, I’d like to know. Please send an email to me at
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